Top Five Improbable Dubs Wins
Warriors really know how to look like shit. They’ve been doing it since 2018, KD’s last year. Maybe they learned a lesson from winning 73 games and not winning the finals. But they definitely know how to play like shit. As they just did again in game 3 to the Lakers. Fortunately, for the Warriors, they also know how to follow it up with the improbable.
Five years ago, I was watching game 7 of the Warriors-Rockets series with a bunch of friends on tape-delay. We all committed to not looking at our phones until the game was over on our time.Late in the 2nd quarter, I saw someone take a glance at his phone and smile. Obviously, it could have been anything. He could have been following our rules and just smiled at a text from his partner. But I had an idea of what was going on. While the rest of us had been fretting over the score, pacing around the room, switching seats, trying different poses, he was going on about how the Warriors got this, this is what they always do, this is what they are going to do again. I wasn’t listening, and I certainly didn’t want to jinx it, but deep down, I knew he was right. This is what this Warriors team does.
And they did. Another comeback, parts implausible and parts absolutely to be expected. There are many aspects to the mystique of the Warriors championship run, but one big one is the consistency with which they both excruciatingly put themselves in positions of losing and then with equal consistency pull out the win. They are like the worst procrastinator…watching the clock click to midnight, looking completely lost and hopeless, and then at 11:59 pulling it together and miraculously winning the game.
Just before the game 7 against the Rockets, I had seen it in person at Oracle. Down 10 at half time, down 3-2 in the series, and up against a Rockets team that was bigger (so many rugby bodies on that team like Eric Gordon and PJ Tucker, let alone Harden and Chris Paul) and making 3 point shot after 3 point shot, I decided to consume more beer to prepare myself for the end of the Warriors era. Steph had just turned 30…the dynasty was on its last legs. Then the Warriors made their classic third quarter run, outscoring the Rockets an astounding 64-25 in the second half. I don’t remember it that well because of all the bad beer, but sitting up high in the second deck, my fuzzy brain watched 3 pointer after 3 pointer after 3 pointer arching seemingly up to the roof and continually swishing over and over through the net. Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry. Add two great defensive and passing players, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, and this was the greatest team of all time, or at least the 21st century.
They’d do the same in game 7. Not only did they start making 3s, they tightened up their elite defense, shutting down opponents who they had let score pretty much at will for the whole series. All of a sudden, they are contesting every 3, and they aren’t letting Clint Capella catch lobs for dunks. All series, Harden and Gordon couldn’t miss. Now they couldn’t make. They missed 27 straight 3-point shots. The Warriors went on to beat the Cavs in the finals for their second straight and third title in four years.
A week ago, they did it again. The story was Curry and his 50. But it was also pretty much the same mode as all the ones before—someone, sometimes Thompson, sometimes Durant, this time Curry. And, equally important and almost always overlooked is epic lockdown defense. Iguodala, Looney, and always Draymond at the center of it. Draymond, the most excruciatingly inconsistent player they’ve got. The guy who can play like the absolute worst player in the NBA. He misses wide open layups, he commits bad fouls, he throws the ball all over the place. But in these games, he locks down. And this time, in a series with six and a half games of porous and inconsistent defense, they locked down in the second half, holding the Kings, the best offense in the NBA, to just 33 second half points (until some garbage time points in the final 2 minutes).The dynasty lives another week or two, and it’s hard to believe this isn’t going to happen again.(Ok, watching game 3 of the Lakers makes it a little harder—we’re going to have to add Jordan Poole to the list of guys who can really be shit, and sometimes be phenomenal.)
But all of this has me thinking, as part of hoping at this point that they can do it again. So, to give me some more optimism, here’s the top five improbable Warriors wins in this dynastic run? I even came up with six.
At number 6, the Sacramento game 7. Everyone is talking this is the “Last Dance,” they blow game 6 at home. Poole and Draymond still hate each other. Old guys look old in game 6. Curry scores 50. But given that’s it only round 1, and it’s against a good but not that scary Kings team, I don’t think it’s top 5.
Number 5. Toronto game 5 in the finals of 2019. They come in down 3-1. KD hasn’t played the whole series and everyone is talking about how he is not coming back to the Warriors. But he comes out to play Game 5 on fire. Then, just like that, KD goes down with ACL. This series should be over. But Warriors win with great Steph, Klay makes seven 3s, Draymond near triple double and a good game from… Demarcus Cousins? (I still kinda think they ought to have gone down to him on the last play of Game 6 instead of Steph firing a 3. Ok, tangent here. If it’s 2023, Steph catches that ball, crosses over and drives for a floater and the Warriors win. But in 2018, he wasn’t 2022 Steph. He wasn’t in rhythm prior to that shot and I had little confidence it was going to go in. Cousins had just scored inside. Sean Livingston, moreover, had the most deadly tenfooter in the game. They didn’t need to fire up a quick off-balance shot like Steph took and missed.)
Number 4. OKC game 5 in 2016. Down 3-2 on the road against Durant and Westbrook. Thunder lead by 8 after 3 quarters. Warriors win the 4th quarter 33-18. Klay makes 11 3s, scores 41 points, and the legend of game 6 Klay is created. Steph adds 31 and six 3s. Draymond, 12-12-6. Durant gives up on Westbrook, Draymond kicks LeBron, Kyrie makes a shot that allows him not to have a career that is a complete running joke. It’s still only 2016.
Number 3. Houston game 7 in 2018. See above. No CP3 (Boo-hoo! Wouldn’t have mattered!). KD gets 34, Curry 27, Draymond another Draymond game.
Number 2. Houston game 6 in 2019. CP3 is there, it doesn’t matter! Durant gets hurt in game 5 and Charles Barkley says no way Warriors win another game. They do. Then Barkley says they can’t beat Portland. They sweep them.
Number 1. Boston game 4 in 2022. The Steph Curry 43-point game before the Steph Curry 50-point game. Celtics scored only 19 points in the 4th quarter. Given the magnitude, this one is kind of obvious. They had been blown out of game 3, they looked rattled and the young Celtics were surging. They didn’t look back.
In fact, they so haven’t looked back that they seem to have concluded that no number of bad games will matter, that in the end, they will have the superiority to lock down and win. I appreciate the confidence. They are going to have to do it again really soon.
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